"Mostly police, they couldn't handle it, that's why they called out the locals to get up there," he said.

Locals say the rioters sprayed police and security guards with fire extinguishers, and then used them and other objects, like a metal grate, as weapons.

"The people there, they were really angry and just wanting to get in and smash things up, bash 'em up," Mr Uera said.

"You could just tell by some of them got hit, some of the locals got in, threw a few punches - they were that angry."

Opposition MP Kieran Keke tried to calm the crowd.

He says he believes police had the riot under control but locals were panicked by the fire.

He blames misinformation and the text.

"It was at a point where it almost erupted into a major confrontation between this crowd of Nauruans who had come to assist and the police who weren't understanding why these people were up there," he said.

He called on the people to allow police to walk arrested detainees to a waiting police van.

"The crowd was turning on those asylum seekers as they were being moved from where they were sitting to the buses," he said.

Police took 152 asylum seekers to prison.

Riot heightened concerns about asylum seeker plans

The incident has heightened local concerns about the safety of having asylum seekers within the community, either under the new deal struck between Nauru and Australia or the Coalition's plan for offshore processing.

"We don't know what they're like - from that incident we can only tell that they are dangerous," Mr Uera said.

Another local resident, Eimynora Ageg, also has fears about asylum seekers coming to Nauru.

"People are scared because we haven't come up with those kinds of behaviours or things like that happening in our homeland," he said.

"All I worry is for the safety of the kids, because Nauru is very free and everyone knows each other."

The Nauru government says it will continue to meet with the community to ease concerns.

Last week the Nauruan government told the community that it would be family groups and unaccompanied minors who would be resettled on the island, and the ABC understands many locals were in favour of helping children.